


Bitter

by Plaant



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Not Beta Read, Speculation, beau and caleb are ultimate mlm wlw solidarity friends, caleb's character development is amazing thank you based liam, canon typical denial of feelings, everyone is sad, i wrote this in one sitting, spoilers for episode s02e26
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 06:38:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15431193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plaant/pseuds/Plaant
Summary: Fjord and Jester have been rescued, Nila and Keg have parted ways with the Nein, and Beau needs to talk to Caleb.





	Bitter

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still grieving Molly and Widomauk so I wrote something sad. Also based on Beau's agreement with Caleb to "not let each other do anything evil".

The night is cold. Beau shivers and clutches her flimsy jacket -- it was overpriced, and it isn't much, but better than nothing. She's even let her hair down now; as much as she hates the sensation of it on the back of her neck and the way it sometimes manages to hang in her face, the shaved sides of her head have started going numb and, anyway, Yasha said some time ago that she looks "kind of cool" with it down. Her stomach wrenches at the memory.

 

 

 

 

"Hey, Caleb," she says, her breaths visible in the fading twilight. "Wanna take first watch?"

 

Caleb is just laying down on his bedroll. His face is aggravatingly blank -- as it has been lately -- and his beard is overgrown again. He looks up at her with a hint of suspicion that is quickly smothered. Not quickly enough; Beau catches it.

 

He glances around before answering, as though he's searching for an out. Beau shakes her head at him;  _you're not getting out of this_. Nott drank too much and passed out an hour ago; Keg stayed in Shady Creek; Nila returned home with her son; Yasha is still missing (Beau's stomach wrenches again); Fjord and Jester are weak from their imprisonment and subsequent torture and deserve some real sleep; the new stranger they met in Shady Creek is as of yet still untrusted; and Molly is, well,

 

"Ja, sure," Caleb eventually offers flatly. He grunts, rising from his bedroll, still sore from the earlier battle.

 

They walk in silence for a bit until they're far enough from the campsite to have a good lay of the land. Well, really, until they're far enough away to not be heard or wake anyone.

 

It's not their best campsite. The road they're following is still visible in the distance -- leading away from Shady Creek and back to Zadash, back to talk to The Gentleman about...about a lot of things. They're exposed here, not that there's much cover around anyway; just rolling hills and frozen tundra.

 

They're lucky to find a rocky outcropping to perch on. Still cold to the touch, but at least not covered in permafrost and damp grass like the ground.

 

Beau hunches forward, leaning against her staff. Caleb sits cross-legged a yard away from her, staring ahead at nothing.

 

Beau eyes him. The sun is fully set now, and he's become an odd, unmoving silhouette in muted moonlight. Something feels off about his posture, and after a few minutes of silence, she realizes it's the stillness -- Caleb is usually a fidgeter, toying with his weird magic diamond, or a piece of gold, or 

 

"Hey, where's Frumpkin?" she asks.

 

Caleb actually looks at her, a bit surprised, like he'd forgotten she's there. "Oh, she's..." he gestures vaguely behind them, "back at camp. In case something happens."

 

"Ah. Smart." Beau taps her temple awkwardly for a moment before realizing Caleb has turned away again.

 

She clears her throat and searches for some kind of entrance to this inevitably unpleasant conversation. "So...uh....Jester and Fjord, yeah?"

 

His eyebrows ruffle. "I am glad we found them in time." He speaks irritatingly slowly, picking his words carefully like he does when he's trying a spell for the first time.

 

"Yeah. Me too." Beau gazes up to the sky, trying to spot stars between gathering streaks of clouds. She counts twenty before the memory of Jester's vacant eyes jerks her back to the reason they're sitting alone in the cold together.

 

She peeks back over at him. A light snow has started, and the delicate flakes collecting in Caleb's unkempt hair give him the appearance of glittering. His face is gaunt and pale -- well, paler than usual.

 

Beau pokes the ground absentmindedly with her staff as she tries again. "You, uh, haven't been talking much. Or eating much."

 

"I have not had much to say," he says with a heavy sigh. "And I prefer you stay out of my eating habits, ja?"

 

"Yeah, I get you about the eating thing, but like...." she searches for a properly aloof reason, "you need to be in good condition to fight, y'know?"

 

Caleb's stares at her quizzically, clearly not buying it. "As long as I can speak and point, I can fight."

 

Beau cringes at the bite in those words, and at how overbearing she knows she sounds. Caleb isn't a child. "You're right, sorry, that was out of line."

 

Caleb doesn't answer her. The silence is swollen.

 

"I'm just...I'm just worried about you, man. You've seemed really out of it. You're not talking to anybody other than Nott." She's spilling over a little, but Caleb's stubbornness is shaking it out of her.

 

Caleb frowns deeply, and Beau feels an unpleasant satisfaction. At least she's getting a real reaction out of him.

 

His voice is glassy and cold when he responds. "Am I not entitled to talk to my own friend?" And then, quieter, with no small dose of vitriol, "At least she doesn't try to control what I eat."

 

Beau resists the urge to punch him. His jaw is set and his brow is furrowed nearly to the point of obscuring his eyes.

 

"Caleb, you're scaring me. I'm  _serious_. You've been so fucking  _blank_  lately. You...you weren't with the rest of us when we killed Lorenzo. You just up and fucking left. And you haven't so much as said  _hello_  since we rescued Jester and Fjord earlier -- you just said 'let's go' and walked off. For fuck's sake, you've barely even looked at them. What's  _up_ with you?"

 

Caleb rubs his beard but doesn't respond. Beau can feel her eyes stinging and she  _hates_  it.

 

She can hear her voice breaking as it boils over. "You didn't even fucking bother showing up to the cleric to ask about Molly. Does it even bother you that we can't bring him back?"

 

Beau knows she's crossed the line but Caleb  _still_  isn't responding and there are tears streaking down her cheeks. "The rest of us are trying to move on and work together to make sure it doesn't happen again, and to live on with his memory, but you've just become a bitter empty shell. And don't think I haven't heard you talk to Nott about booking it because we're no longer  _useful_  to you on your path to world domination or whatever  _bullshit_  you're chasing as a means to correct your own fucking mistake. That shit  _hurts_ , Caleb, that you think we're just pawns in your scheme. I thought you were changing -- I thought you'd started to care about us and think of us as actual friends, but I guess you're just too much of a fucking piece of shit wrapped up in his own victimization to understand that."

 

Beau's vision is blurred and her words are coming in a blubbering, breathless mess by the time she's finished. She isn't sure how loud she was talking, but her throat feels raw and her heart is pounding and her knuckles are white from gripping her staff. She tastes blood and salt and tears and it's  _good_.

 

Until it isn't. It takes a minute for the storm to pass and for her to realize just how badly she's fucked up.

 

She bolts upright and whips around to look at Caleb. He's slumped forward and sitting perfectly still, dirty russet hair hanging in front of his face.

 

Beau trips over her words trying to get them out. "Shit, Caleb, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean any of that, I --"

 

Caleb mutters something inaudibly.

 

Beau leans toward him. "What?"

 

There's a beat of silence before he repeats it, loud enough for her to hear:

 

"I...loved him."

 

Beau freezes. " _What_?" she asks again, this time out of disbelief.

 

Caleb nods, and Beau catches a brief glimpse of his face between the curtains of hair -- his skin is glistening with tears.

 

"I loved him." Caleb repeats it again, fully aloud, like a confessional. "Gods, I loved him."

 

"You....Mollymauk?" Beau asks disjointedly.

 

Caleb takes in a shaky breath that sounds strangely like a chuckle. "Ja. Mollymauk."

 

Tentatively, Beau shifts closer to him, so there's only an inch or two separating them. Now that she's this close, she can see his well-controlled trembling.

 

She looks around, not entirely sure for what, before speaking. "Shit, Caleb, I..." Her voice lowers, "I didn't know."

 

He sniffles loudly. "Neither did I."

 

"What does that mean?"

 

Caleb turns his face to stare at her like it's obvious. His eyes are puffy and red and still brimming with tears. "It means I am not a smart man and rarely understand my own feelings."

 

Beau nods like she understands and offers an awkward pat on the back. To her surprise, Caleb leans into it and cuddles into her as a hug.

 

"Whoa, uh..." Beau says.

 

"It is cold," Caleb mumbles into his coat.

 

Beau pats him again. "I mean, like...I'm not great with the whole 'feelings' thing either, but, uh, do you want to like....talk about it?"

 

There's a pause, which Beau punctuates with "I don't know what I'm doing."

 

Caleb sighs. "I've only fallen in love once before, and that was....before. It was different. Organized. Reasonable. Astrid and I were similar, both destined for..." the next words are painfully bitter, "' _great things_.'"

 

Beau's awkward arm patting morphs into an awkward arm rubbing.

 

Caleb continues, voice bruised. "Mollymauk....irritated me at first. He was so flashy and ostentatious. But he was kind, and he was genuine, things that so many people are lacking. Including me."

 

"How...uh...how long have you....had feelings?" Beau asks.

 

Caleb pulls his coat tight around him. "I don't know." He pauses, thinking. "I don't know, because I did not want to have them. He was a strange one. Kind and genuine to the point of being untrustworthy."

 

"That about sums him up," Beau says.

 

"He was everything I am not. But he was so, so willing to accept me, despite everything. It....he made me happy."

 

"He made all of us happy," Beau adds.

 

"And then it started to burn. Swallow me up. I didn't want it, because I knew it wouldn't work."

 

"You just ignored it, huh?"

 

 

Caleb nods into her shoulder. "I didn't want to deal with it. And..." he hesitates, "And after Astrid....the idea of..." He trails off, catches his breath, gathers himself, "...I didn't want to do it again. To go through that again. The loss."

 

Beau holds him tight, keeping her apologies inside.

 

"But here I am." The break in Caleb's voice is the worst thing Beau has heard in her life; it is pitiful and jagged and it takes all of her strength to not break down with him.

 

For awhile, there is nothing but Caleb's wracking sobs, and snow.

**Author's Note:**

> you can follow me on tumblr at plaant.tumblr.com


End file.
